Johanna Faust, a mixed race Jew, prefers to publish pseudonymously. She is committed: first, to preventing war, ecological disaster, and nuclear apocalypse; last to not only fighting for personal privacy & the freedom of information, but, by representing herself as a soldier in that fight, to exhorting others to do the same. She is a poet, always. All these efforts find representation here: "ah, Mephistophelis" is so named after the last line of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, whose heretical success flouted the censor for a time.

Evidence Human Beings
Were "Born To Be Good"



Our method is Science
Our aim is Religion...

If you have a moment, Gentle Reader, and especially because there is or should be no unnecessary freaking out, you really ought to -- that is, you owe it to yourself -- to give a listen to Prof. Dacher Keltner.

The abstract, which accompanied the video, here reproduced as fitting introduction:

Presented by Dacher Keltner. 
Prof. Keltner will be presenting work related to his recent book 
"Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life":

"In this talk I will survey the latest evolutionary and neuroscience that aligns with Charles Darwin's thesis that sympathy is our strongest instinct, or that we are born to be good. I will take the audience on a tour of recent evolutionary thought, which suggests that our hyper vulnerable offspring rearranged our brains, genes, and social structures. I will detail new research on the vagus nerve and oxytocin, branches of the nervous system that have evolved to enable cooperation, trust, and caretaking. I detail new signaling systems -- tactile communication and vocalization -- which are critical to the transmission of prosociality across individuals. Throughout the talk I integrate the latest science with the wisdom found in Eastern thought."

Dr. Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, 
and Director for Greater Good Science Center.

December 9, 2009






I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, 
briefed, debriefed, or numbered:
I am not a number;
I am a Free Man:
My life is my own.



Be seeing you.